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 Jul 2022 Brooke Davis
Kareena
In twenty years
It will matter
To me that
I did not receive
A card
On our anniversary
And it will matter
That you
Did not listen
To me
As I was asking
For your love
And affection
Over and over
Again

And now it is
“My fault”
That I left
You alone
To feel the space
I took up and now
I’m disturbed
For disrupting
Your world

I gave you myself
Wrapped up
In a little bow
All of the beautiful
Things I could think of
Generosity and
Kindness and
Tenderness in the
Face of stress and
Sleep deprivation
And my financial support
Endlessly
Despite my own
Tribulations
Yours were always
More pressing
More stressful
More important
I was constant
For you
I wanted to be
Perfect
For you
But I didn’t realize
The toll it was taking
On me

When I tell you
I love you
You could never believe me
Not now, especially
But I have to finally
Love myself
More than I love you
Do you understand that?
I cannot pour myself
Out to you
If I have nothing to give
The nurturing love
The love I needed myself
I gave it all away to you
Because I felt that
You needed it more
Than I did
Maybe you did
But I need it now

I need myself
Where is she?
I’m finding her
I need her
I need her sweet love
That I’ve never had
That you loved so much
You loved the love
I gave you
But did you love me?
My cracks and flaws
And imperfections
The darker parts of me
The parts I tried to hide
I am gathering myself up
To find a way
To care for the parts of myself
That I’ve deemed unlovable
That no one would want
I want to want myself
 Jul 2022 Brooke Davis
Kareena
My face is
Your shame
My pain is
Your reminder
My words are
A knife
 Jul 2022 Brooke Davis
Kareena
I had been waiting
For you to be different
For my whole life
You were all I had wanted

What happens to you
When you find yourself
Living an answered prayer
But still missing something

I tapped my fingers on tabletops
Sang ballads in the shower
I had no idea what it was
That made us incomplete

It wasn't always just so
There were so many times
I felt so full I could burst
And love would leak from within

But when I lacked, it was dark
I felt dry, like a locked empty home
I folded in to myself, origami swan
Creased and dog eared, not the first time

I loved the idea of life you told me
We could have had together
Did everything I could to help you
Get us there eventually

But I realized that eventually
You would still drown out
My little, little voice
Among the noise of your speakers

No matter how much money
You made, it would be the same
Chasing something that would
Never be enough in the end

I was waiting for you
To love and prioritize me
To see me for exactly who I was
Instead of who you had wished I would be

Someone who always loved you
Put you first and cherished your quirks
Who would have stayed but saw
That you would never change

You find no fault
In what you have done
It is me to blame
For not accepting partial love

I found out that what was
Missing all along was you
Truly respecting and cherishing me
As freely as I did it for you

So instead of waiting
For you to change, I did
“Mom, I am a rich man”
I changed into the partner I needed

Someone who cherishes me
Someone who protects me
Someone who puts me first
Someone who isn't afraid to be close to me
 Aug 2021 Brooke Davis
Kareena
The first time tripped
My heart up on the carpet
Crumpled beneath the front door to the sin
It wouldn't close because it was caught in
Between what I had believed
My whole life to be what
I wanted vs. what he wanted
To wait, which meant being waited on
Or to give in and be given
I said "okay" but wasn't sure
Uncomfortable expression, no longer pure
I cried at dinner in candlelight,
Bled for days,
Disenchanted, disengaged.
I confided the experience in a friend,
Surprised I ever did it again.

He had good qualities, but partially,
He was a jar with the lid on crooked
I was an indecisive and shaken up woman.
Never let myself approach the point of totally trusting
I controlled, but as did he, he tried his hardest
Made me think I would be bored elsewhere or that
Another man would never measure up
Next to the nature or intrigue of
What he did to me, I didn't refuse
But found myself hating him secretly.
I wanted it, but in a different way
Lusting wears off as rose colored lenses fracture
Never allowing myself to call him my master
With indentations on my wrists,
I removed lust's blindfold, and
Walked away from him, eighteen years old

The second time was my first,
With you, something new.
But when you've done it before
Doing it once more
Doesn't seem to be
A matter of eternal life or death
Simply a matter
Of consent.
And I wanted you, I wanted it to be
Very organic, very pure, true, with you
As the vision I had for a partner, all that time
Even with him, even though you weren't mine

So when the moment came, I couldn't think
Of a reason not to go back to your dad's house
And kiss you until my lips hurt,
******* until I had couch burn,
You holding me tightly afterward.
The intrinsic beauty in the loving look settled over your eyes
When you assured me you wanted me to feel just right.
The way we talked after, the smiles and laughter
A first time of security, not emotional disaster.
As if it were the question and you the answer.
As if that one time could replace all the moments
That it wasn't you, that we were apart
Thinking of you with occupied arms an open heart
 Aug 2021 Brooke Davis
Kareena
I want the noise to stop
The beeping
The rollercoaster
The constant
Raising and lowering

I desire the still
A slopeless line
The mundane to some
Would be an unbelievable fortune
A dream that I would be
Unable to pinch myself awake from
Because it would never be realized

I crave the quiet
Ubiquitous sleep
Of the unbothered

Sometimes being alive
Feels like too much work
 Aug 2021 Brooke Davis
Kareena
What an intoxicating fallacy
Is perceived immortality.
The belief of ones vitality
Will be one's true, final fatality.
 Aug 2021 Brooke Davis
Kareena
When I do not feel heard
Sometimes I close my eyes
And let my mind take me
In the damp and cold night

I slip out my back porch
Close the door quietly behind
Tiptoing through my yard
So I won't wake you
Before you should know

I walk down the steep hill
Past my house
Farther away, deeper still
Treading on drenched asphalt
Without my phone

Maybe you should have realized me
When I was home?
 Aug 2021 Brooke Davis
Kareena
Dented Diet Coke can heart
Trained to be concave
Too shiny and begging
To be torn apart

To feel the sliding
Of aluminum against aluminum
Too smooth and intoxicating
To stop

Willing to
Let you
Do it, too

Don't cut your finger
 Aug 2021 Brooke Davis
Kareena
How quaint to be let in
If only, for a moment
To view your perspective
From my perspective
To sit by your side
And watch you live your life
If only, for a moment

How brief were those encounters
Surprising and scarce.
I met myself there,
Barefoot and just beginning.
Experiencing and cultivating
The grass roots of my soul.
written while listening to Shrike by Hozier
Who cleans the killed from the road?
Who takes the broken and buries them?
Who stops the traffic? They’re not always around.
The skunk is nothing more than a dark spot
Along the intersection before the interstate.
I watched it wither away over three months
Each day becoming less recognizable
Each day sinking lower into the ground
I think the tuff of its tail snapped off
And rolled down the *****, into more traffic.
Where were they? Why was this one not moved?
When I am run over will you scrape me from asphalt
Or leave me to bake in the summer sun
Until I am as nothing as now, true nothing,
Flattened and forgotten and forsaken?
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